The increase in luminous power of LED's has led to a blurring of the distinction between architectural lighting, signage, and informational display systems. Traditional LED display systems have been built by arranging a matrix of LED's on rigid printed circuit panels. There is, however, a growing demand for LED display systems that consist of lightly suspended matrices of light sources without the heavy and opaque support structure associated with traditional LED display systems. These ‘suspended’ LED display systems may form a curtain-like display that is viewable from either side of the display plane. Examples of currently available products that may be used as the basis of such display systems include the MiSphere LED light source modules built by Barco, iColorFlex SL LED cable lights built by Color Kinetic, and GlasPlatz's PowerGlass. These three commercial products represent different approaches to the problem, but all have limitations, such as fixed pixel spacing in at least one direction. The artist Erwin Redl has also built a number of static LED artwork pieces that create a curtain of light.
The present invention facilitates the construction of large LED displays and offers some innovative features that may provide superior performance in many applications, particularly in fixed architectural displays.